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With only 15 speakers left, the Ainu language is “critically endangered” while seven other languages in Japan are also at risk of disappearing, according to a UNESCO report.
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Born in 1983 in a small village of Hokkaido, Obihiro, from an Ainu father (who passed away when she was 5) and a Japanese mother, she confessed to have always been surrounded by objects belonging to Ainu culture at home, although she has never received any proper education as Ainu.
Awareness of belonging to Ainu people, then, came little by little along with maturity and, only after the encounter with some representatives of an aboriginal people of Canada during her first year of high school, it turned to the necessity of knowing much about her roots and the will to communicate the beauty of Ainu culture to people.

Active in the promotion of Ainu culture among the Japanese and of Ainu awareness among the Ainu minority, since she was a university student Mina has organized several events and participated to numerous conferences, always spreading a positive message about the “being Ainu”.
“What Ainu have been deprived of are the land, the language and their pride” she said “but the worst thing is the self-denial (自己否定)”, that is thinking that it is normal to be discriminated and be ashamed of your own origins instead of fighting the prejudices.

One of the reasons why Mina, together with the other members, decided to start the Ainu Rebels project in 2006, was indeed to give a shake to the state of oblivion in which Ainu identity was about to sink into.
Believing in the power of music and dance as effective means of gaining the attention of the people (especially of the younger generations) and communicating with them at a deeper level, from the beginning of this adventure the group has made its way in the music industry by introducing elements of Ainu traditional dance and music mixed up with elements of the contemporary youth culture, such as pop and hip-hop.

As they have already been criticized, this kind of project, a band made of members belonging to an aboriginal people, is not new, nor original. It is already twenty years that bands formed of people from minorities living in Canada, New Zealand etc. have been making their voice heard experimenting any possible crossover between traditional, folk and rock or hip-hop music.
Not for this, however, the challenges that Ainu Rebels have to face every day in Japan are fewer. Criticisms, in fact, arrive especially from the elder generations of Ainu who have suffered for all their life of the impossibility to live their culture freely and who, now that they have been finally recognized as aborigines of Japan, would like their traditions to be passed on in a more “orthodox” way.

But even if not in the most orthodox way, Mina and her group, do believe in the potentiality of an alternative way to present the Ainu culture, also feeling that the influence of Japanese contemporary culture for them who have grown up as many other Japanese youngsters is inevitable.
Besides, considering themselves as “just become Ainu” with many things left to learn yet, they know that they belong to two cultures, Japanese and Ainu and that denying their Japanese origin would be meaningless as well as refusing to accept their Ainu origin.

Risk is also part of this adventure started by Mina and her friends some years ago but it seems to be worth it, as she made clear at the end of the conference when she declared “Once Kayano Shigeru [萱野 茂, one of the major Ainu cultural and political leaders] said something like “things that go ahead get wet before” (先に行くものはぬれる), well, I myself want to get wet”.

Director Hiroshi Moriya (森谷博) will give voice to the Ainu community living in Tokyo in his new documentary TOKYOアイヌ (“TOKYO Ainu”).
Thanks to this precious document, Ainu younger generations (as well as everybody else in the world who has ignored Ainu’s existence so far) will be able to know more about this people’s identity, tradition and the Tokyo community’s every day life.

“TOKYO Ainu” features the Ainu, an indigenous people of Japan, living in Greater Tokyo (Tokyo and its surrounding areas), who are active in promoting their traditional culture in a metropolitan environment away from their traditional homeland, Hokkaido. Shedding a common assumption that all Ainu live in Hokkaido, the film captures the feelings, thoughts and aspirations of Ainu that try to follow the Ainu way no matter where they live.

The documentary is scheduled to be completed by March 2010 but, as its production relies entirely on donations and private contributions, the “TOKYO Ainu” Film Production Committee started the distribution of individual or group cooperation vouchers that can be purchased online.
TOKYOアイヌ promotional video

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Please refer to official website to read more about the “TOKYO Ainu” project.
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On June 6, a couple of months prior to the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People, the Japanese Diet passed a resolution to officially recognize the Ainu as an indigenous people. Immediately following the passage of the resolution, a government panel held its first meeting to start working on a plan to put these words into action. […]

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